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This article explores „biography“ as a separate field of research within adult education. It focuses on analysing the outcome of alphabetization and basic education courses on biographies and coping mechanisms of functional illiterates. At the same time, the importance of biography research for practical work with illiterates is highlighted. The article also discusses a list of requirements that need to be met for an innovative adjustment of such practical work, and thus making better use of it…
As empirical studies have shown, the Germans’ knowledge of financial affairs is rather poor. Basic knowledge on banking and insurance is often absent, even though it is essential in times when provision for a safe future increasingly becomes everyone’s personal responsibility. Even if relevant content were taught at schools comprehensively and from this moment on, today’s adults would still remain ignorant. Therefore, a tremendous task lies ahead for adult education to provide relevant knowledg…
The article systematizes perspectives for the development of supply structures for people with a migrant background, especially for refugees. For this purpose, the article defines an integration concept that focuses various educationally relevant levels and dimensions, which are entangled with a perspective of the intercultural and transcultural adult and further education. Based on the results from various program analyzes studies and ongoing research projects, it furthermore reflects, how the…
Starting out with deliberations on the relationship between the course of life and the constructed biography of an individual, this article intends to elucidate the contexts of learning as they are treated in various (inter-)national studies, by focusing on the individual’s course of life. To clarify which methodological design is most appropriate to study processes of (lifelong) learning and education, it then seems necessary to highlight a particular methodological approach. This leads, ultim…
This paper arguments that if competency assessment is to make any contribution as a potentially “liberating” curriculum strategy for struggles of community development and self-determination then it needs to contest the authoritarianism of the national qualification frameworks that have been established in Australia and New Zealand. This article critiques research and policy efforts, in particular for indigenous learners which seek to merely make authoritarian curriculum and assessment structur…
Meaning and function of the concept "employability" in education-political documents of the European Union After a short reconstruction of the evolvement of the social-political dimension since the 1990s, the textual dimension and the function of the concept of employability in the labour market, employment policy as well as the educational political discourse of the European Union are analysed. Considered are with it the changes of the controlling instruments of European politics with regar…
Quality in further education is not supposed first and foremost to serve the educational organisation itself (the „within“), but the learners (the organisation’s „without”). The “without” should therefore have a substantial say when quality measures are developed and evaluated. Dr. Ch. Ehses and Prof. Dr. R. Zech of the “ArtSet Institut für kritische Sozialforschung und Bildungsarbeit e.V.” explain why the external view-point – the learners’ perspective – is essential, how it can work and what …
The article deals with cooperation under the perspective of governance from an organisational view. According to the variety forms of cooperation in the field of adult education, cooperation can be seen as a medium that adult educational organisations can use for their reproduction and coordination in different institutional environment. Based on empirical findings from a case study, it can be shown that organisations initiate cooperation for collecting resources and legitimation. So, organisat…
Competences assessed with the ProfilPASS for Young Adults can be used effectively by pupils for vocational choices, if the ProfilPASS is embedded in educational career guidance and supervised by qualified ProfilPASS counsellors. Previous experience reveals the imperative knowledge of the tool, its consultative approach and the particular field of application – the school context. The publication presents examples of implementation as well as practical recommendations for the successful applicat…
The report covers approaches for research and modeling an orientation to social spaces of educational facilities in synergy with real-world oriented search for education. According to the author, it is based on four central categories: living environments, educational spaces, thematic portals and learning cultures. The analyses of educational participation in social spaces from a meso and macro didactical perspective, based on educational theories, can support the identification of educational …
